NEW YORK -- With the start of school comes the daily bus ride, and for some kids it means daily bullying, too. A school district in New York is keeping an extra eye on students with some high-tech help.
Their school buses are equipped with four cameras, each one carefully positioned and able to clearly pick up sounds.
The school district says after a growing number of bullying and discipline issues, they invested in a new system last year, and it’s working tremendously. With discipline reports dropping significantly.
“If we see a child’s behavior on there that is somewhat bothersome, but hasn’t elevated to the point the bus driver is complaining, we can be proactive and say we’re watching a bus today, and we saw you jump up four or five times,” said Neil O’Brien, Port Byron Schools superintendent. “You can’t do that on the bus.”
Bus drivers can press a button when an incident occurs. It marks the place on the video so school officials can look at it later.
A tracking system has also been added with live GPS, allowing the district to notify parents by phone when a bus is running late.